Pauli-Heisenberg Blockade of Electron Quantum Transport

Abstract

Conduction of electrons in matter is ultimately described by quantum mechanics. Yet at low frequency or long time scales, low temperature quantum transport is perfectly described by this very simple idea: electrons are emitted by the contacts into the sample which they may cross with a finite probability. Combined with Fermi statistics, this partition of the electron flow accounts for the full statistics of electron transport. When it comes to short time scales, a key question must be clarified: are there correlations between successive attempts of the electrons to cross the sample? While there are theoretical predictions and several experimental indications for the existence of such correlations, no direct experimental evidence has ever been provided. Here we show a direct experimental proof of how temperature and voltage bias control the electron flow: while temperature \(T\) leads to a jitter which tends to decorrelate electron transport after a time \(\hbar/k_BT\), the bias voltage \(V\) induces strong correlations/anticorrelations which oscillate with a period \(h/eV\). Our experiment reveals how time scales related to voltage and temperature operate on quantum transport in a coherent conductor. In complex quantum systems, the method we have developed might offer direct access to other relevant time scales related, for example, to internal dynamics, coupling to other degrees of freedom, or correlations between electrons.